About Iowa City Babywearers

To provide accessible babywearing education and support in our community.

Ethos:

We respect the judgment and competency of our members. You know what is best for your child and your body.

Anyone who has learned one carry, using one carrier, with one stage of child development has the experience to teach what they have learned to someone else.

There are no experience prerequisites for learning any carry or carrier. Everyone starts somewhere. We will meet you where you are: if that is with zero experience and eager to learn newborn back wrapping, we are very pleased to help you.

We pride ourselves on being an independent source of information about traditional and contemporary infant carriers. We are unaffiliated with a national (or international) organization, not simply because we are older than most of them, but because we want to focus our attention on the needs of our individual members and our local community.

History:

On May 10th, 2006, Jun-Nicole Matsushita and Jennifer Hamner organized a Yahoo group called Iowa City Babywearers. That fall, through the TBW forums, they connected with Aradia Wyndham, inviting her to join their first official in-person meeting, on the first Saturday of January 2007 at a little coffee shop called Fair Grounds in Iowa City.

In 2008 Jun-Nicole left to focus on Bamboo Birth and in 2012, Jennifer Hamner relocated. Due to medical disability, Aradia had to limit her role in the group and in 2016 Kelsey Sandeno stepped up as the head of the Iowa City Babywearers.

Contributor Bios:

Kelsey Sandeno, mother of three, is the current head of the Iowa City Babywearers. She started babywearing in 2009 with the birth of her eldest son and has been teaching babywearing in the Iowa City area since 2010. Sandeno has taught online with BabyCenter, through the ICBW’s YouTube channel as the creator of the Wrap Challenge and Wrappers’ Corner video series, and posts detailed carrier sewing tutorials on the IBCW blog. She specializes in contemporary babywearing culture and textile production.

Aradia Wyndham taught babywearing in her community from 2006-2014, drawing on her experience using infant carriers as a nanny since 1998. As an undergraduate, she studied anthropology with particular interest in infant carriers and swaddling techniques. As a graduate student, Wyndham studied book history with a focus on Medieval and Early Modern English medical and domestic manuals concerning ideas about the female body, birth, and infant care. She the social media manager/content creator for ICBW and the author of the blog Evolution of Babywearing.

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One thought on “About Iowa City Babywearers”

Hello, we are hosting a Baby Fair at the North Liberty Community Library on August 30, 2015 from 1-3pm. The purpose is to provide a single location for expecting families to gather information and learn what resources their community has to offer for their baby’s arrival. I was wondering if your organization would be interesting in participating in this event? Please contact me at 319.626.5731 for additional information. Thank you. Jennifer

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Upcoming Events:

Saturday, April 6th, 11:15-12:15

Join us at Iowa City Public Library in the Story Time room for our free babywearing meeting. Bring your carriers or try ours! For those that can’t make it to the meeting but have babywearing questions, join us on Instagram, we’ll be posting to our stories.

Affliated Links

We use affiliate links for products we mention in our posts. This means that if you click on a product link and end up purchasing the item, we get a small kickback. This kickback helps us support the work of the group and we only use links to products or brands we trust. If you have any questions, please contact us.